2026-02-01 18:02:43
Here’s a daily calendar for 2026 that prints on a single sheet of paper. There’s not much space to add appointments, but I’m using it to enter and see my family members’ travel plans for the full year at a single glance. — MF
Yep, some years ago a band of artists really did build a secret apartment inside a mall and lived there for years. This cheerful and marvelous documentary, Secret Mall Apartment (on Netflix), reveals many more cool layers to the whole hijinks stunt. It is way more interesting and inspiring than first appears. It was a bold work of art, and I came away seeing art as a way of life. — KK
Here is a beautiful collection of data visualizations called Data Poems by Luke Steuber. Each piece transforms raw information—war casualties, language evolution, and UFO sightings—into contemplative visual experiences that feel more like meditation objects than charts. — CD
Recent research shows that trees are like animals that can collaborate with each other, exhibit individual behavior, communicate with each other over large distances, and regulate the environment to a remarkable degree. All these marvelous abilities are revealed in the graphic novel version of the best-selling book The Hidden Life of Trees. The graphic novel is an easy pictorial read, with sketches and color drawings illuminating both the new ideas and the persistent beauty of our wooden allies. This book will give your brain the reasons why your soul finds trees so good. — KK
Text Behind Image is a web app that does exactly what it promises to do. Upload an image to add text, and design and position it however you want—useful if you want to create social media or promotional graphics. It’s free to use, and the finalized images have no watermarks and are high-res. — CD
The ThruNite Ti Mini keychain flashlight is surprisingly powerful for something that weighs under an ounce. The USB-C charging is a welcome upgrade from older micro-USB lights. It has four brightness levels, including a barely-there “firefly” mode, plus a magnetic tail for hands-free use. Double-clicking turns it on, preventing accidental draining in your pocket. — MF
MicroMacros are color-coded gummies for people who care about the last gram. Protein. Carbs. Fat. One gram at a time. Not a meal. Not a shake. Just clean macro control when precision matters. Dial in your macros.
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.
2026-01-25 18:02:28
Everybody dreads the chores of maintenance; Stewart Brand is trying to make maintenance cool. In his new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Brand celebrates the value, methods, even the joy of maintaining things – from cars to homes to bodies – in a series of stories, digressions, lessons, and brilliant insights. Turns out civilization is basically varieties of maintenance. Stewart Brand’s books famously change people’s minds, and this one changed my mind. I now look forward to my maintenance duties, and I learned some how to do it better from this book. — KK
When a 65-year-old oak tree died from fungal disease, artist Steve Parker carved slices of its trunk like vinyl records, etching bird songs into the wood grain. These playable oak records are featured in a 3-minute video where you can hear the sounds of the birds that once lived in the tree’s branches. Parker also created a brass sculpture with medical ventilators that splays out like tree roots—a reference to his father’s battle with cancer. “Funeral for a Tree” is a beautiful meditation on grief that inspires me to find ways to transform what’s been lost into something that still speaks—or sings. — CD
My AirPods Pro started making a loud hissing noise. I tried all the different fixes the online hive mind had to offer, to no avail. They were out of warranty, and I didn’t want to spend $250 to replace them. Instead, I bought a pair of CMF Wireless Earbuds for 1/10th the price. To my ears, they sound just as good as the AirPods Pro with excellent noise cancellation and easy pairing with all of my Apple hardware. I use them for phone calls, listening to podcasts, and music. I bought the orange ones so they'd be easy to find when I drop them on the floor of a plane. — MF
One of my go-to podcasts these days is the non-fiction scripted show Articles of Interest, which investigates articles of clothing and other things that we wear. It is a spin-off from the legendary podcast 99% Invisible, and carries that program’s intelligence and the nerdy appeal of deep research. Now in its second season, each episode tackles the origin, history, and meaning of an article such as blue jeans, suits, wedding dresses, and even pockets! Illuminating worlds within small details is what this show is so good at. Recommended. — KK
Rather than adding resolutions and goals to your new year, this article suggests 12 distractions you can leave behind — like scrolling for stress relief, push notifications for most apps, and constant background noise. When they’re listed like this, I can immediately see how leaving them behind would create more silence and space in my life, since a lot of these things seem to be the default settings for daily life. — CD
Did you know that Recomendo isn’t the only newsletter we publish? We have eight others!
Gar’s Tips & Tools Useful ideas for home and workshop. (Weekly)
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What’s in my NOW? In each issue, a person shares things and ideas that are important to them. (Weekly)
Tools for Possibilities Curated, thematic picks from 20+ years of Cool Tools. (Weekly)
Books That Belong On Paper Recommendations of visually striking books, with sample pages. (Weekly)
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In our humble opinion, they are all worth trying out, and they’re all free. — MF
60,000+ marketers subscribe to MarketingIdeas.com for a reason. Every Thursday, Tom Orbach (Director of Growth at Wiz) breaks down one growth tactic that is working right now. Real marketing ideas, real numbers, zero fluff. Read by teams at Meta, Google, and Netflix.
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.
2026-01-18 18:02:03
TeamLab produces immersive destinations that are worth going out of your way to see. They began in Japan, where they have four huge installations that offer entertaining environments, using lights, mirrors, video, projectors and other media magic inside giant rooms. Our family spent an exhilarating 3 hours in the TeamLab Borderless site in Tokyo wandering through the mazes of experiences with constant smiles. It dazzled kids and elders. Even though TeamLab have become Instagram hot spots, and art snobs consider it too commercial, I would recommend making a trip to experience Borderless yourself. Go with friends, it’s more fun. — KK
Project CETI’s Listen to Whales website is an immersion into the codas and culture of cetaceans, inviting you to literally listen in on sperm whale family life and history. The project uses AI to listen to, decode, and translate sperm whale communication. I love how CETI reframes whales as cultural beings with their own clans, dialects, and stories, and has created this living platform to share what they’re learning in real time—and to inspire meaningful action to protect our oceans. — CD
I keep this Workpro 24-in-1 Multitool in a kitchen drawer for quick fixes so I don't need to shlep down to the basement for my toolbox. It handles minor repairs: tightening a loose cabinet hinge, snipping a zip tie, prying open a battery compartment. The pliers are solid, the knife is sharp, and the Phillips and flathead screwdrivers cover 90% of household fasteners. Folds to about the size of a thick marker. Not a replacement for real tools, but perfect for "I just need to fix this one thing" moments. — MF
I’ve long been a big fan of Magna-Tiles, which are small plastic squares that act as parts of a construction system for kids. The tiles rely on magnetic edges to build things easily. You can build a million different things, like Lego, but it is much easier to do than Lego. Even toddlers can master them without boredom. They now make MicroMags, tiny compact versions of mini-Magna-Tiles, perfect for travel. A small set of MicroMags will fit into a slim box about the size of a standard book, and give restless kids enough options to occupy them for hours. Small enough to pack in luggage, but set out on a table, they invite playful engagement. — KK
The Correlation Experiment has you answer questions about everyday preferences so it can predict your answers based on data correlations. I don’t like being predictable, so I loved when its predictions went wrong—out of 60 questions, it missed about 20%. After a while, though, I was insulted by the misses: it pegged me as not an inbox zero person, guessed comedy over horror, and said I don’t make my bed first thing in the morning. No login needed, and it’s fun to play. — CD
Clever Cleaner is a free iPhone app — no ads, no subscriptions, no paywalled features. It scans your photo library for duplicates and similar shots, identifies large videos hogging space, and rounds up forgotten screenshots. A “Smart Cleanup” button lets AI select which duplicates to trash, or you can swipe through photos manually. All processing happens on-device, so your photos never leave your phone. It’s made by CleverFiles, the folks behind Disk Drill data recovery software. — MF
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.
2026-01-11 18:01:08
We launched a free daily email newsletter called Recomendo Deals that alerts you when products we’ve previously recommended in Recomendo and Cool Tools drop to unusually low prices. Here’s how it works: Every day, the system checks thousands of products we’ve recommended over the years against Keepa, a service that tracks Amazon price history. When a product falls 20% or more below its 90-day average price, or hits an all-time low, it surfaces as a deal. These aren’t random products — they’re things we’ve already vetted and recommended. I’ve already purchased a few items myself. It literally takes 20 seconds to scan the 5 to 10 deals that show up each day, and most days there’s nothing I need. But occasionally, something I’ve had my eye on drops to a great price. Give it a try by subscribing here. — MF
By far the best bargain flights to Japan are through a Japan Airlines subsidiary called Zip Air. Our family used it going both ways to Tokyo this holiday and I can highly recommend them. All routes begin or terminate in Tokyo, flying from hub cities in Asia, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and from select cities in the US. Prices vary widely during the year, but on some weeks this coming spring an economy ROUND TRIP flight from San Francisco to Tokyo is only $283!!!! Of course, they charge for everything from meals, water, blankets, and luggage. But we can manage. And their “lie full flat” seats (business class) are less than $2,000, but also without blankets, pillows, or service. We tried both the economy and full flat seats, and both are worth the small hassles for the ridiculous cheap prices. — KK
This article gathers 35 simple, research-backed practices from sleep specialists, sex therapists, psychologists, nutrition scientists and more, each offering one small habit they personally rely on to support everyday well-being. The whole list is great, and I especially love the reflection on “soft fascination” — turning to simple, almost meditative tasks when there are too many mental tabs open, and letting answers rise on their own. For me, washing dishes is always a meditative reset that clears out mental clutter and restores a sense of spaciousness. — CD
What we now call the English language has been rapidly changing for over a thousand years. The best way to experience this evolution is to watch this video by Simon Roper where the same passage is recited in proto-English, and then repeated in newer versions of Old English every hundred years, until you reach modern English. The game is to see when you begin to understand it. For me it was around 1600 in part. This gimmick, more than any other, gave me an appreciation of what ancestral versions of English were like. — KK
Every night I have multiple, vivid dream adventures, and for the past five years I’ve been writing them down and treating them as a parallel stream of consciousness for self‑reflection, healing, and guidance. The dream teacher who’s helped me the most is author Robert Moss, whose free Substack is a living archive of shamanic “active dreaming” prompts, personal stories, and techniques that make it easy to develop a co‑creative relationship with your dreams. If you’re at all interested in understanding your dream self on a deeper level, I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter. Two great starting pieces are “Nine Keys to Understanding Your Dreams” and “The Only Dream Expert is You.” — CD
A relative with ADHD brought a NeeDoh to a family gathering, and I couldn’t put it down. Like me, she uses fidgets to focus, and this one is perfect — a soft, stretchy ball filled with a viscous dough-like substance inside a silicone skin. You squeeze, squish, and stretch it, and it slowly oozes back to its original shape. The resistance is deeply satisfying. Her tips: keep it in the fridge to make it harder(and more fun) to squeeze, and when the silicone skin gets grungy, wash it with soap and water, then rub cornstarch over it — good as new. NeeDoh comes in various shapes (balls, cubes, figures) and costs around $5-10. Great for desks, meetings, or anywhere you need to keep restless hands busy. — MF
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Declutter your inbox! The Meco newsletter reader app lets you organize and read newsletters in a dedicated space. Connect Gmail/Outlook. Features offline reading, topic grouping, highlights, saved links, and custom themes. Available on iOS, Android, web. Free version with premium features.
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.
2026-01-04 18:02:15
Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 9 years.
Last year, Paul Graham, a renowned programmer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist known for co-founding Y Combinator, wrote an essay titled “How to Do Great Work.” He covered a wide range of topics, from choosing what to work on to cultivating originality. This week, I came across Peter Schroeder’s terrific visual representation that maps out the main ideas from Graham’s essay. It’s useful even if you don’t read the essay. — MF
This 1-minute video by John Cleese is all you need to know about how to have productive (vs unproductive) meetings. One minute! Applies to zoom meetings, too. — KK
How to professionally say is a list of things you might feel like saying at work — along with a more professional alternative for how to express them. Example: Instead of saying “That sounds like a horrible idea,” you can say “Are we confident this is the best solution, or are we still exploring alternatives?” While some of the phrasing might not flow naturally for me, I’m inspired to adopt more neutrality and directness in my professional language. — CD
I am a big fan of YouTuber Ali Abdaal. In this video about Resumes he condenses a whole book of information presenting the best advice for applying for a job into 30 minutes. It’s the same advice I gave to my kids when they started working. Whether you are looking for a job, or hiring someone, this is worth your time. Forward it to a young person. — KK
This Two-Minute Burnout Checkup helped me understand the primary factors of chronic stress and burnout. I can sense physically when I am nearing burnout, but before this I didn't understand that it's more than just feeling exhausted. This checkup evaluates six sources of chronic stress: workload, values, reward, control, fairness, and community. You rate your level of stress from 0–10 for each one and add up the numbers to get a score out of 60. This could be especially helpful if you track your score over time. Here’s a link to the survey. — CD
Writer and entrepreneur Ryan Holiday has had a varied career, from Hollywood agent assistant to marketing director for American Apparel. He’s put together a list of 37 pieces of hard-fought career advice that’s useful for anyone who works. Examples:
Find what nobody else wants to do and do it. Find inefficiency and waste and redundancies. Identify leaks and patches to free up resources for new areas. Produce more than everyone else and give your ideas away.
Always say less than necessary. Saying less than necessary, not interjecting at every chance we get — this is actually the mark not just of a self-disciplined person, but also a very smart and wise person.
Your creative output, your personal relationships, and your social life—balancing all three is impossible. You can excel in two if you say no to one. If you can’t, you’ll have none.
When people compete, somebody loses. So go where you’re the only one. Do what only you can do. Run a race with yourself.
— MF
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others. Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak.
2025-12-28 18:00:24
I, too, now have a Substack newsletter where I post a short essay once a week. It’s my “works in progress” on technology, culture, travel, art, and even spiritual stuff. Some of my essays are brand new, and some are older pieces cross-posted from my Technium blog. Instead of having to visit the blog, I send it to you in an email (that is Substack). My pieces are low-stakes, cold takes – I am not in a hurry. I aim to pay attention to long-term trends. Comments are active and I try to respond to sincere comments. Sign up at KK on Substack. It’s free (although I have some paid subscribers, thank you!). — KK
My wife replaced her PopSocket phone grip to the new Snap Grip 5 ($40). It’s just 3mm thick, with a profile that prevents it snagging on pockets like bulkier grips. It has a powerful magnet that snaps to MagSafe phones. You can use it as a one or two-finger grip, flip it into a sturdy kickstand, or stick your phone to any metal surface (fridge, gym equipment, car door). Works with iPhones and includes an adapter for Android phones. — MF
My mother is a seeker, so I grew up baptized multiple times and in and out of various churches. As an adult, I’ve had to rebuild my relationship with both spirituality and community, and I tend to assume every organized group with a shared mission is a cult until proven otherwise. That’s why I really appreciate this carefully constructed “Is It a Cult?” tool by ClearerThinking. The assessment looks at things like unusualness, conformity, isolation, control of information, ethics, and sacrifice, reflecting the nuanced criteria behind their Cult Assessment tool. ClearerThinking’s programs and assessments are grounded in empirical data and are balanced in perspective, and this particular questionnaire understands that being a cult is not binary—it’s a set of traits, each of which lies on a continuum. — CD
I was skeptical about air fryers until I tried the Ninja Crispi. It comes with three glass containers so you can see your food cooking, and they’re non-toxic (no Teflon coatings). I’ve made sweet potatoes that came out caramelized on the outside and soft inside. It’s perfect for crisping frozen samosas and pupusas in minutes. My mother baked a whole chicken in it beautifully. The containers go from freezer to cooking to table to dishwasher. — MF
This piece argues that most nine-to-five workers underuse their after-work hours because we stay in our “inner CEO” identity, which hijacks free time with urgency traps like emails, Slack pings, and low-value work that keeps laptops open all night. The advice is to acknowledge and give time to our other inner characters—like the Lover, Artist, Friend, and Athlete—and create a simple cast schedule for weeknights. For example, on Mondays the Athlete moves your body, on Tuesday the Friend schedules a conversation or hangout, and so on. The real key is honoring the end-of-work transition with a shutdown ritual: create a two-do list for the next day, close unnecessary tabs, say out loud “Workday closed, artist open,” and then do something sensory (shower, stretch, short walk, or after-work-only music) to let the next character take the spotlight. — CD
My favorite advice guru is Dan Pink. He is very wise, but also very concise. He can convey a book’s worth of advice in a few minutes – and his advice is good and practical. He is a master of dispensing his wisdom in very short videos. His latest class is a 4-minute lesson on How to Fix Your Attention Span. Might as well stay for his other lessons as well. — KK
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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.
